'Ice Cream Man' Interview: Director Eli Roth

Moviefone speaks with writer and director Eli Roth about 'Ice Cream Man'. "I didn't want this film to look like any other horror movie." he said.

Opening in theaters on August 7th is the new slasher film 'Ice Cream Man', which was directed by the master of horror, Eli Roth ('Thanksgiving').

Ice Cream Man

"We all scream."

NRHorror Comedy Thriller

Audience
Score

Release Date: Aug 7, 2026

Run Time: 1 hr 26 min

Budget: $6,000,000

The film stars young actors Charlie Zeltzer, Shiloh O'Reilly, Kiori Mirza Waldman, and Sarah Abbott, as well as Roth as Marty, and Ari Millen ('Orphan Black') as the title character.

'Ice Cream Man' director Eli Roth.

Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with director Eli Roth about his work on 'Ice Cream Man', having the idea for the story and developing the screenplay, working with the young cast, the film's gore and violence, the look of the movie, and the challenges of acting and directing at the same time.

Director Eli Roth on the set of the horror film, 'Ice Cream Man', from The Horror Section. Photo: The Horror Section 2026.

Moviefone: To begin with, can you talk about coming up with the idea for the story and developing the screenplay?

Eli Roth: The idea came to me years ago when I was doing the press tour for 'Cabin Fever'. It was the summertime and I saw an ice cream truck, and I had those memories of growing up outside Boston in summertime, and hearing that music, and just running out in the street after the ice cream truck. Watching these kids, I thought, well, what if this person was a serial killer? Or what if they were poisoning the children? We just trust ice cream men. Then I thought, that's too dark, what if I could do a story where the music activated the kids to kill their parents? What if it was like the Pied Piper, and he could just turn the kids against the parents, and activate them with the songs he plays in his truck? So, I wrote the screenplay with my friend, Noah Belson, this was 2003 or 2004, and for years people were like, "We can't make this movie. This is too disgusting. You can't have children doing this!" So, for every time I'd have a hit, people would say, "Well, what else do you want to do?" I would say, "I have this movie 'Ice Cream Man'." They would say, "No, no, that's too sick." Then after seeing 'Terrifier 2' and 'Terrifier 3' unrated in theaters, I thought, I could make an unrated horror movie and put this in theaters like 'Re-Animator' or 'Evil Dead II', and that's what I wanted to do. So, I formed this new company, The Horror Section, and this is our first release. We did it completely outside the mainstream system, outside the studio system. We're releasing it ourselves, and I'm excited to see what happens. But I think there's nothing like it.

Charlie Storey as “Piper” in the horror film, 'Ice Cream Man', from The Horror Section. Photo: The Horror Section 2026.

MF: What was it like working with a young cast of actors and how did they feel about shooting the violent and gory scenes? Were they into it?

ER:They loved it. I mean, they love Halloween. We screened them. We told them what we were doing, so anyone that didn't want to do it wasn't there, and the kids that were there were fully down to go for it. They love it. Little Charlie Storey, who plays Piper, I'm shooting the scene where she's sawing her mom's head off, and by the time we were shooting it, she had to go back to school. She had school that day, and then she came in the afternoon, and we're sawing her mom's head off in the middle of the night with a tree saw. We're pumping tubes, and we have fire extinguishers, and we're spraying blood, there's blood on the ceiling, and she's covered in blood. I'm like, "Just smile the whole time. Just smile at your dad and go back to sawing." She's just covered in gore, with a fake head. I said, "This has to be the weirdest first day of school." She goes, "No, it's the most fun. I'm going to have the best stories tomorrow for show and tell. I wish I could bring mom's head to school." It's like, she completely got it. She loved it. Her mom was there, her actual mother was watching, going, "Wow, this is really scary. My kid is good at this." So, the kids got it, they understand playing monsters. Once you put them in the ice cream makeup, there was no direction required. I put headless bodies with blood pumping out of the neck under the teeter-totters, and the girls were just jumping up and down on the teeter-totter. You put the human head on the tetherball, the kids start playing with it. There's no direction required, they got right into it. I wanted that, I wanted the kids in the story to be having a great time. This is like Christmas for them. They love it.

Ari Millen in 'Ice Cream Man'. Photo: Valerie Flores/The Horror Section.

MF: A lot of horror movies are visually dark to create a creepy mood. But 'Ice Cream Man' looks bright and very colorful. Was that a conscious choice on your part?

ER: Yeah. I wanted it to look like 'Bad News Bears' or like an Amblin movie. Like a Joe Dante movie, or 'Pee-wee's Playhouse', that just gets then completely splattered with blood. It's about the perversion of all the innocence of childhood. You see the kids playing jump rope at the beginning, and playing pin the tail on the donkey, and Little League, and all these happy memories, and then later they're doing jump rope with intestines, and pin the knife on the teacher, and taking baseball bats and bashing their parents' heads in. It's totally insane and perverse. So, I wanted it to be shot in these beautiful primary colors, and I worked with my production designer, Peter Mihaichuk, my costume designer, Jennifer Jarvis, and my DP, Simon Shohet, and we looked at the whole color palette of the movie. I didn't want it to look like any other horror movie. It's not like a dark, oppressive, bleak movie, it starts off like this Amblin movie, and then turns into 'The Birds', or the first 20 minutes of 'Saving Private Ryan', but with children.

(L to R) Eli Roth as “Marty” and Karen Cliche as “Alison” in the horror film, 'Ice Cream Man', from The Horror Section. Photo: The Horror Section 2026.
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MF: Finally, you play a role in the film. What is it like directing yourself? Does it change the way you work on set?

ER: No, I loved it. I felt like it was the right part, and I don't want to just put myself in the movie for the sake of it, but I love acting. I just shot 'Night Always Comes' with Vanessa Kirby, and I had the best time acting with her. I really had the acting bug. I thought, I want to do this again, I want to do more acting. So, I was really back in that acting mode. I wrote the part for myself, and it was great because we shot it towards the end, it was the second to last day of shooting. I was really comfortable with Sarah Abbott and Charlie Zeltzer, who were such fine actors, and so we're all super comfortable with each other. Karen Cliche came in, and Karen and I had done 'Thanksgiving' together, I directed her. So, we're really good friends. It was just super easy and super fun. I made sure to give them the takes, and we knew we'd get it. I wanted to have a dinner scene that didn't feel like acting, it felt like that dinner scene in 'E.T.' I remember seeing that as a kid going, "That's exactly what it's like." It's not scripted. It's people talking over each other, making jokes, insulting each other, talking with their mouthful. Or like in 'Goodfellas', after they bury Billy Batts, they go to the mom's house and they're eating dinner. I wanted that kind of a vibe. I had that camaraderie with the cast already, so it was actually quite easy.

Ari Millen as “Ice Cream Man” in the horror film, 'Ice Cream Man', from The Horror Section. Photo: The Horror Section 2026.

What is the plot of 'Ice Cream Man'?

An idyllic suburban town descends into madness when a mysterious ice cream man (Ari Millen) serves sweet treats that turn children into homicidal maniacs.